Republican Ohio Supreme Court Gives Big Business Win Over Worker Safety
Within seconds of walking into an industrial elevator’s control room at a TimkenSteel plant near Canton, Ken Ray, a 32-year-old firefighter who moonlit there as a security guard on the weekends, died of asphyxiation.
No one knew at the time, but nitrogen had continuously leaked into the room from a device designed to blast small puffs of pressurized gas to dust off the ventilation filters. Oxygen typically comprises about 21% of ambient air. On March 20, 2016, it was measured at 4.7%, slowly and lethally displaced by inbound nitrogen.
All parties agree the nitrogen gas almost instantly killed Ray, who was tasked with inspecting fire extinguishers on site. But on Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that nitrogen gas is not “toxic,” as the law at the time required for a lawsuit accusing the company of a safety violation to prevail. The court’s ruling blocks Sharmel Culver, Ray’s widow, from punitive financial penalties that her lawyer said could have potentially been worth millions.
The six Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court sided with TimkenSteel (now known as Metallus Inc.) and the Ohio Industrial Commission, which hears appeals of workers compensation claims. They agreed that because nitrogen is a primary component of the air we breathe, it’s not toxic.
An appeals court had at first reversed the Industrial Commission’s decision, finding that it was the amount of nitrogen in the air that made it toxic. Plenty of other naturally occurring substances can kill you, the judges found, and a critical mass of many chemical compounds can transform them from harmless to lethal.
The 6-1 decision this week from the Ohio Supreme Court’s Republicans means the security guard’s widow can’t seek millions in potential punitive damages. The case marks a win for the major industrial employer now known as Metallus.